Young Writers Society

Hi nanda ! Traves here for a quick review.

--I think the mostly consistent rhyme scheme worked well, and this poem flows nicely. That means, it is easy to read and comprehend. That is a major plus point. Also, always nice to see a non-English poem around here.

--So tributes to mothers are common, especially in Indian culture. And that is one of my nitpicks with this poem. It feels a bit derivative. Just as the case is with "broken heart" type cliches, unless you think about old words in a new way, it comes across as prosaic. That is what it read like here for the most part. Ma as an embodiment of the divine, Ma hurting with their child etc, these are a bit overused in my opinion.
Here are some relevant posts from the YWS knowledge base on cliches and emotional poetry
- Emotional Poetry
- Cliches in Poetry

-- I believe that this could have been mitigated by the use of show-not-tell. Basically, here you are directly telling us different qualities of a mother directly in most of the lines, instead of showing it to us, or going for more in-depth analysis of what these qualities mean, and how they manifest in various ways. Through these a reader could construct a more vivid image which would also make me more interested in the poem since you let me understand it without directly being told how it is.
- For more details on show not tell, I'd recommend both reading poetry of famous poets in Hindi to get a feel (just google rashtrakavi poems) and visiting these links below-
- https://kidlit.com/2009/12/18/what-show ... lly-means/
- https://kidlit.com/2014/10/06/naming-emotions/
-https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=150&t=41426


Although a lot of the info in the articles above is prose focused, most of it can be easily applied to poetry.

I'll now follow a poetry review format I learned on YWS -
1. similes and metaphors — There are 3 I could find, mother as a "moorat" created by god, her as "pyase ko jharna" and her as "dhoop mein chhaya ban khadi rahi" . So I'd say the first two are used well, but I was a bit confused by the third one. Wouldn't the mother be the provider of shade instead of being the shade itself? And shade can't stand. Although I get that you're hinting at her as a tree providing shade, it still felt awkward.

2. Narrative and characters - there's only one character here, the mother. You told us about her various qualities. The imagery was good, especially at the end, but I feel you kept repeating the same dimensions of her character. Compassionate, loving, caring. This article in particular helps me out in such cases Specificity in Poetry

As for the narrative, this was mostly absent as it was ode type of poem, so any kind of conflict or resolution is moot, although it would be an interesting experiment to introduce some in here and work with that.

3. Moral/meaning - Mothers are amazing.( Agreed tbh)

I feel that this is work has a solid flow and a good base, well done!

Keep writing and sharing!

Hey, yet another fine work of yours! A very beautiful poem. I see you have mixed Hindi and Urdu in your poem.

One thing, I get it that you maintained comma and period throughout the poem, but I feel in some lines they are not needed, like in the following lines, "maine hai kai baar." instead of stopping the line, more sense would have been made by using a comma. "maine hai kai baar," as it continues the flow of reading.
"मैनें है कई बार।
आ नहीं सकता था ईश्वर," and
"शीतल जल पिलाती है।"

"चोट लगती है जब मुझे,
दर्द उसे होता है।
न हो कुछ मेरे साथ अच्छा,
तो दिल उसका रोता है।"
These lines are so deep and brings out so much emotions (in me). A mother cannot see her child in pain, so she is ready to take the pain for the child to be happy. She sacrifices her happiness and needs just to see a smile on her child's face.

"सब कुछ दिया ईश्वर ने उसे,
जिसे दिया मां का प्यार।"
These lines makes me think that we, who have mothers, are so fortunate to have mothers' love in our life. At the same time it makes me sad for those who could never have a person who loves them unconditionally like a mother. That's why we should be grateful for everything that our mother does for us.

The ending is smooth and amazing. A quite nice way to understand mother, that is in a body form and in nature. We say mother earth, like our mother, provides us with things that makes us comfortable to continue living. Yet we keep going on 'exploiting expeditions'. We need to take moments in life, and just show how grateful we are to have such a godly figure with us in different forms.

I'll say it again. You have a clarity of thought and a good sense of writing. Looking forward to read more of your works. Keep writing!

Best wishes,
I